Thursday open thread: We are not Weimar Germany

This needs to be reiterated again and again. Why? Because the theme is that we're hurtling toward fascism, and it's just like Germany in 1932.

This week, Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio was sentenced to twenty-two years in prison for his role in the January 6th coup attempt.

In 1922, Adolf Hitler was sentenced to two years for the same offense. And while in his luxurious prison he wrote Mein Kampf. I don't think Mr. Tarrio will have the same luxury.

Weimar Germany was a fake democracy, with an oligarchical class which was pouring resources into right-wing paramilitaries to snuff out the democratic government. All of Germany's major corporations were involved in this.

Now compare that to the United States. Organizations like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers are not being funded by IBM, Microsoft, or General Motors. Our corporations may be many things, but our tradition of ever-widening democratic norms is not something which Weimar Germany had. 

I'm not an American exceptionalist. There are many things wrong with this country. And we face a real crisis. But this country's constitution—in all meanings of that word—is much more resilient and able to beat back fascist movements than countries like Germany and Italy in the early 20th century. Right-wing dictatorships were not confined to those two countries. They spanned the breadth of a Europe which, save for the United Kingdom and France, had very little tradition of democracy. Indeed, those countries sought to stifle left-wing agitation and keep traditional elites in control.

Even someone like Elon Musk and his pretensions don't frighten me. At the end of the day, the world moves further along the road to democracy. This is why men like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping strive so mightily to stifle their populations. It will work for a while. It might work for longer than we would like. But no regime is eternal.

I leave you, as is my wont, with the words of a wise alien.

“No dictator, no invader can hold an imprisoned population by force of arms forever. There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom. Against that power, governments and tyrants and armies cannot stand. The Centauri learned this lesson once, we will teach it to them again. Though it take a thousand years, we will be free.”

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